SEC v. Kristine L. Johnson, Troy A. Barnes and Work With Troy Barnes, Inc. (ponzi schemes, 2015)

Settled

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In February 2015 the SEC charged Kristine L. Johnson, Troy A. Barnes and their company Work With Troy Barnes, Inc., doing business as The Achieve Community, with running a pyramid and Ponzi scheme that raised more than $3.8 million, and obtained an emergency asset freeze in Colorado. A final judgment on the defendants' consents, entered May 10, 2019, enjoins Johnson and Barnes and holds each jointly and severally liable for $3,427,937 in disgorgement, deemed satisfied by their criminal forfeiture orders.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$3.4m

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$3.4m

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The complaint, filed February 12, 2015 in Denver and unsealed shortly after, alleges that since April 2014 the defendants sold $50 positions in a "matrix" promising $400 payouts within months, supposedly generated by a "triple algorithm", while having no real business and paying earlier investors from later investors' funds. Achieve International, LLC is a relief defendant.

The record carried a court of Connecticut, which is a mis-parse of the case number, and a defendant list in which three parties were run together.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes payments to earlier participants made from later participants' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome. The District of Colorado's Final Judgment (Document 86, entered May 10, 2019, following Judge Blackburn's May 6 order) is captioned against Johnson and Barnes only. It permanently enjoins each from violating Exchange Act section 10(b), Rule 10b-5 and Securities Act section 17(a), and makes each liable, jointly and severally, for disgorgement of $3,427,937, which is deemed satisfied by the forfeiture orders in their parallel criminal cases in the Western District of North Carolina. It incorporates the defendants' consents, treats the complaint's allegations as admitted only for bankruptcy-discharge purposes, and says the case will be closed. No civil penalty or prejudgment interest appears. The judgment does not mention the company Work With Troy Barnes, Inc. or the relief defendant Achieve International, LLC, so this outcome is recorded for the two individuals only and the others were not checked. The judgment does not state the criminal sentences, so none is stored.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2015-02-18 Litigation release published
2. 2019-05-10 Final judgment entered against Johnson and Barnes (D. Colo.)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC litigation release
• Final judgment (D. Colo. 15-cv-299, Doc. 86)

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.